2024 NATIONAL MEDAL
for Museum and Library Service Finalist

Non-Fiction

Kitchen Confidential

Almost two decades ago, the New Yorker published a now infamous article, “Don’t Eat before You Read This,” by then little-known chef Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain spared no one’s appetite as he revealed what happens behind the kitchen door. The article was a sensation, and the book it spawned, the now classic Kitchen Confidential, became an even bigger sensation, a megabestseller with over one million copies in print. Frankly confessional, addictively acerbic, and utterly unsparing, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business.

Mott Street : A Chinese American Family's Story Of Exclusion And Homecoming

Mott Street follows Chinese American writer Ava Chin, who grew up estranged from her father, as she seeks the truth about her family history--and uncovers a legacy of exclusion and resilience that speaks to the American experience past and present. Chin's ancestors became lovers, classmates, sworn enemies, and, eventually, through her birth, kin--all while converging at a single Chinatown address.

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

He was a grifter of the first degree, a smooth-talking con artist, a Machiavellian manipulator. He was also a sexual predator, luring women with his aura of fame and power. As grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, D. C. Stephenson’s ambitions did not stop with the organization he shepherded from its Southern roots to dominance in the Midwest. Bullying and buying the loyalty of businessmen, judges, and politicians was not enough for Stephenson.

The Long Reckoning : a Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam

The American war in Vietnam left many long-lasting scars that have not yet been sufficiently examined. The worst of them were inflicted in a tiny area bounded by the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in neighboring Laos. That small region saw the most intense aerial bombing campaign in history, the massive use of toxic chemicals, and the heaviest casualties on both sides.

The Rooster House : A Ukrainian Family Memoir

In 2014, the landmarks of Victoria Belim's personal geography were plunged into tumult at the hands of Russia. Her hometown Kyiv was gripped by protests and violent suppression. Crimea, where she'd once been sent to school to avoid radiation from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, was invaded. Kharkiv, where her grandmother Valentina studied economics and fell in love; Donetsk, where her father once worked; and Mariupol, where she and her mother bought a cherry tree for Valentina's garden all became battlegrounds.